SOME GLIMPSES OF UPPER CANADIAN POLITICS.
In the course of the years 1835, '6 and '7, I made many journeys to Toronto, sometimes wholly on foot, sometimes partly by steamboat and stage. I became very intimate with the Todd family and connections, which included Mrs. Todd's brother, William P. Patrick, then, and long afterwards, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly; his brother-in-law, Dr. Thomas D. Morrison, M. P. P.; Thomas Vaux, Accountant of the Legislature; Caleb Hopkins, M. P. P., for Halton; William H. Doel, brewer; William C. Keele, attorney, and their families. Nearly all these persons were, or had been, zealous admirers of Wm. L. Mackenzie's political course. And the same thing must be said of my friend Mr. Drury, of Bradford; his sister married Edward Henderson, merchant tailor, of King Street west, whose father, E. T. Henderson, was well known amongst Mackenzie's supporters. It was his cottage on Yonge Street (near what is now Gloucester Street), at which the leaders of the popular party used often to meet in council. The house stood in an orchard, well fenced, and was then very rural and secluded from observation.
Amongst all these really estimable people, and at their houses, nothing of course was heard disparaging to the Reformers of that day, and their active leader. My own political prejudices also were in his favour. And so matters went on until the arrival, in 1835, of Sir Francis Bond Head, as Lieutenant-Governor, when we, in the bush, began to hear of violent struggles between the House of Assembly on the one side, and the Lieutenant-Governor supported by the Legislative Council on the other. Each political party, by turns, had had its successes and reverses at the polls. In 1825, the majority of the Assembly was Tory; in 1826, and for several years afterwards, a Reform majority was elected; in 1831, again, Toryism was successful; in 1835, the balance veered over to the popular side once more, by a majority only of four. This majority, led by Mackenzie, refused to pass the supplies; whereupon, Sir Francis appealed to the people by dissolving the Parliament.
What were the precise grounds of difference in principle between the opposing parties, did not very clearly appear to us in the bush. Sir Francis Head had no power to grant "Responsible Government," as it has since been interpreted. On each side there were friends and opponents of that system. Among Tories, Ogle R. Gowan, Charles Fothergill, and others, advocated a responsible ministry, and were loud in their denunciations of the "Family Compact." On the Reform side were ranged such men as Marshall S. Bidwell and Dr. Rolph, who preferred American Republicanism, in which "Responsible Government" was and is utterly unknown. We consequently found it hard to understand the party cries of the day. But we began to perceive that there was a Republican bias on one hand, contending with a Monarchical leaning on the other; and we had come to Canada, as had most well-informed immigrants, expressly to avoid the evils of Republicanism, and to preserve our British constitutional heritage intact.
When therefore Sir Francis Head threw himself with great energy into the electoral arena, when he bade the foes of the Empire "come if they dare!" when he called upon the "United Empire Loyalists,"—men, who in 1770 had thrown away their all, rather than accept an alien rule—to vindicate once more their right to choose whom they would follow, King or President—when he traversed the length and breadth of the land, making himself at home in the farm-houses, and calling upon fathers and husbands and sons to stand up for their hearths, and their old traditions of honour and fealty to the Crown, it would have been strange indeed had he failed.
The next House of Assembly, elected in 1837, contained a majority of twenty-six to fourteen in favour of Sir F. B. Head's policy. This precipitated matters. Had Mackenzie been capable of enduring defeat with a good grace; had he restrained his natural irritability of temper, and kept his skirts cautiously clear of all contact with men of Republican aspirations, he might and probably would have recovered his position as a parliamentary leader, and died an honoured and very likely even a titled veteran! But he became frantic with choler and disappointment, and rushed headlong into the most passionate extremes, which ended in making him a mere cat's-paw in the hands of cunning schemers, who did not fail, after their manner, to disavow their own handiwork when it had ceased to serve their purposes.
CHAPTER XXIV.
TORONTO DURING THE REBELLION.
In November, 1837, I had travelled to Toronto for the purpose of seeking permanent employment in the city, and meant to return in the first week of December, to spend my last Christmas in the woods. But the fates and William Lyon Mackenzie had decided otherwise. I was staying for a few days with my friend Joseph Heughen, the London hairdresser mentioned as a fellow-passenger on board the Asia, whose name must be familiar to most Toronto citizens of that day. His shop was near Ridout's hardware-store, on King Street, at the corner of Yonge Street. On Sunday, the 3rd, we heard that armed men were assembling at the Holland Landing and Newmarket to attack the city, and that lists of houses to be burned by them were in the hands of their leaders; that Samuel Lount, blacksmith, had been manufacturing pikes at the Landing for their use; that two or three persons had been warned by friends in the secret to sell their houses, or to leave the city, or to look for startling changes of some sort. Then it was known that a quantity of arms and a couple of cannon were being brought from the garrison, and stored in the covered way under the old City Hall. Every idle report was eagerly caught up, and magnified a hundred-fold. But the burthen of all invariably was, an expected invasion by the Yankees to drive all loyalists from Canada. In this way rumour followed rumour, all business ceased, and everybody listened anxiously for the next alarm. At length it came in earnest. At eleven o'clock on Monday night, the 4th of December, every bell in the city was set ringing, occasional gun-shots were fired, by accident as it turned out, but none the less startling to nervous people; a confused murmur arose in the streets, becoming louder every minute; presently the sound of a horse's hoofs was heard, echoing loudly along Yonge Street. With others I hurried out, and found at Ridout's corner a horseman, who proved to be Alderman John Powell, who told his breathless listeners, how he had been stopped beyond the Yonge Street toll-gate, two miles out, by Mackenzie and Anderson at the head of a number of rebels in arms; how he had shot Anderson and missed Mackenzie; how he had dodged behind a log when pursued; and had finally got into town by the College Avenue.
There was but little sleep in Toronto that night, and next day everything was uproar and excitement, heightened by the news that Col. Moodie, of Richmond Hill, a retired officer of the army, who was determined to force his way through the armed bodies of rebels, to bring tidings of the rising to the Government in Toronto, had been shot down and inhumanly left to bleed to death at Montgomery's tavern. The flames and smoke from Dr. Horne's house at Rosedale, were visible all over the city; it had been fired in the presence of Mackenzie in person, in retaliation, it was said, for the refusal of discount by the Bank of Upper Canada, of which Dr. Horne was teller. The ruins of the still-burning building were visited by hundreds of citizens, and added greatly to the excitement and exasperation of the hour. By-and-by it became known that Mr. Robert Baldwin and Dr. John Rolph had been sent, with a flag of truce, to learn the wants of the insurgents. Many citizens accompanied the party at a little distance. A flag of truce was in itself a delightful novelty, and the street urchins cheered vociferously, scudding away at the smallest alarm. Arrived at the toll-gate, there were waiting outside Mackenzie, Lount, Gibson, Fletcher and other leaders, with a couple of hundred of their men. In reply to the Lieutenant-Governor's message of inquiry, as to what was wanted, the answer was, "Independence, and a convention to arrange details," which rather compendious demand, being reported to Sir Francis, was at once rejected. So there was nothing for it but to fight.